Imagine a speed At which you could make what was happening Not be true

So you had your share of summer nights,
Cars braking fast along the river road.
The world was asleep yet alive with threat,
The high grieving sound of acceleration.

Beauty grew too fast, like your body:
Ungainly, unfaithful. Along the river road,
There were nodding lilacs. Every intersection
Dangerous. Your life dangerous, but you

Didn't know then how damage is made. Not
Just the flipped glittering chassis, spun apart
Into anecdote--but Night's notched-up velocity
Ascending through a blue reservoir of scent.

No, to remember the inevitable in terms
Of engaged, disengaged, gear to gear, one
Heightening judgment, is to forget that back
Then the worst happened each time it happened.

What was speaking loud over the figure on the dash--
That was God or not God--something flashing past
Each roadside presence: statute over gesturing statute
Trying to reverse your belief in imagination

As the opposite of fate. Imagine a speed
At which you could make what was happening
Not be true, a speed at which you could bargain
For it: that you, on fire, from this minute forward,

             Could be somebody else.

[Carol Muske-Dukes {1945- }, 'River Road', from Twin Cities]